A typical vehicle owner attaches a number of different physical tags to her vehicle so others can view information printed on those physical tags from outside the vehicle. The information usually indicates that the vehicle owner has permission to take certain actions or access certain areas. For example, a vehicle owner may hang a handicapped parking permit (a form of physical tag) from the vehicle's interior rearview mirror to indicate that she has permission to park the vehicle in a handicapped parking spot. In another example, a vehicle owner may affix a parking permit to the vehicle's rear window to indicate that he has permission to park the vehicle in a certain parking area, such as a business's private parking lot. In another example, a vehicle owner may affix a vehicle registration sticker to the vehicle's windshield to indicate the city in which the vehicle is registered and that the vehicle's registration is up-to-date.
These physical tags have some drawbacks. One drawback is that certain laws or regulations require certain physical tags, such as handicapped parking permit hang tags, to be hung from the interior rearview mirror when the vehicle is parked but stored elsewhere while the vehicle is traveling. This requires the vehicle owner to constantly hang and remove the physical tag, which is bothersome and increases the chances that the vehicle owner will lose or damage the physical tag. Another drawback is that if a vehicle owner owns multiple vehicles, the vehicle owner has to ensure that the vehicle the vehicle owner is driving on a particular day has the appropriate physical tags. For instance, if a vehicle owner owns four vehicles, he has to ensure that his employee lot parking permit is in whichever vehicle he drives to work each day. This either requires the vehicle owner to obtain multiple copies of the same physical tag (one for each vehicle) or to ensure that whenever he drives a vehicle it has the necessary physical tags.
There is a need for new systems that solve these problems.